


Dead Weight

by tjmystic



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-11
Updated: 2013-06-11
Packaged: 2017-12-14 17:20:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/839405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tjmystic/pseuds/tjmystic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What happened between Rumple waking Belle up and the scene on the docks in the Season 2 finale</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dead Weight

Dead Weight  
for forzaouat

Rating: R

Prompt: The scene between the reunion kiss and leaving for the docks.

Dialogue:

“I’m going to have to do laundry.”   
“For the last time it is not too big.”  
“Sweetheart, when did you get a tattoo?” 

 

The street outside was chaos. Footsteps, screaming, prayers to gods that didn’t exist in this land and perhaps hadn’t even in the old one melded together in a stream of madness, engulfing everyone and everything in its path. The ground shook under the people’s weight, chased down by the cracking pavement as each building disintegrated into vines and dust.

Inside his pawnshop, though, Mr. Gold poured his top-brand whiskey with a steady hand.

“To the end of the world,” he muttered dryly.

The woman… the girl, in front of him shook her head, her loose, messy hair falling over her shoulder as she did. She looked just as lost as the people outside sounded. And she was looking to him for comfort.

He sighed. “Come on, it’ll help numb it,” he tried again. Numbness was the best thing he could offer her – if she couldn’t feel it, then he’d feel a little better about letting his Belle die in another woman’s mind. At least, that’s what he told himself – whether or not he believed it hardly mattered now that he had nothing left to fight for. 

Lacey tightened her arms around herself, drawing her too-tight dress even closer to her body. Once, he might’ve been jealous of the material for being able to cling to her so tightly, but now he just felt empty – it was his Belle’s body that the dress hugged, but it wasn’t her soul, and that was the part that mattered to him. 

She shook her head again, but, this time, it was more amused than put-off. If he cared enough, it would’ve angered him – nothing was amusing about this situation he’d landed them all in. But, then, her voice shook when she finally spoke, even though she tried to cover it by snorting, and he wasn’t sure that she found it that amusing, either. 

“I’ll drink to that.”

Her whole body shook when she moved, just like the tremor in her voice she’d tried so hard to hide. He didn’t try to help her, nor even touch her, when she reached for the drink and spilled it all over the countertop. She wasn’t his to help. This was a whiskey glass, not their chipped cup. 

“I’m so sorry,” she apologized, eyes darting around his backroom as she looked for something to mop it up with. Much as he tried to fight it off, he couldn’t keep the tremor of pain from sweeping into his chest – only Belle, his darling girl, his sweetheart, would be concerned about spilling his whiskey when the world was about to end. 

He closed his eyes, missing whatever it was she’d grabbed to clean up the mess. This was exactly what he was trying to avoid, these memories. If he let himself feel, if he let himself think, he’d be lost to the agony of all that had gone wrong. All he wanted – or all he’d allow himself to want in this moment – was for Lacey to share a quiet drink with him as they sat and watched Storybrooke burn.

But then he looked up again, saw the fabric she was drenching in her drink, and all thought of restraining himself flew out the window. 

“Stop, stop, put that down!” he snapped, lunging for his boy’s cloak with shaking hands. A dark stain had already appeared where she’d touched it to the alcohol.

Lacey left at him and kept wiping. “It’s an old rag,” she laughed derisively. 

He reached again, this time ripping the cloth from her hands. His heart shattered when he felt how wet it was - it could very well have been soaked in his boy’s blood instead of Lacey’s whiskey. And the dismissal from the woman in his Belle’s skin only made it worse.

“It belonged to someone very important! You wouldn’t understand!” he shouted, unable to force back the onslaught of emotions. “You wouldn’t understand…”

She cowered from him in fear, not able to get away from him quickly enough, it seemed. He couldn’t tell if it was rage or bile that rushed through his stomach at the sight. Belle was never afraid, not of him, not of anything. She was brave, and gentle, and smart, and caring, and never, never afraid. She never would’ve used his son’s cloak to mop up a spilled drink. She never would’ve let him suffer alone. 

Lacey inhaled heavily. “I said I’m sorry,” she whispered.

The words had barely left her lips when her tongue darted out to lick them, her eyes fogging up with lust for the fear he’d put in her. Gold swallowed down the bile in his throat and looked away, only to look right back up when he saw the wet cloth in his hands. He couldn’t decide if it or the leer on Belle’s… on Lacey’s face, was worse. Which one he’d rather fix. 

He finally turned away towards the table she’d gotten the cloak from to begin with. Now it was his turn to shake. He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t be a hero. Not now, not when he had nothing to be brave for. He just wanted his son back. And he needed his Belle. 

Though his eyes were already damp, he looked back at her over his shoulder. He wanted there to be some trace of that brave woman he’d fallen so hard for, the one who’d seen goodness in him when even he’d forgotten it was there. He needed a reason to think that bringing her back wasn’t necessary. But all he saw was the fake facsimile, the thing with her face but Regina’s cruelty and Cora’s lust for power. His eyelids clenched tight when she stared back – she wouldn’t be able to stand the sight of him after what he was about to do. It would be best to deprive himself of it beforehand.

He was steady, somehow, as he turned to the cabinet on his left, neither wavering nor shaking as he turned the handle. The blue velvet bag he’d put in it weeks ago was still there, just at the front where he’d be condemned to see it every time he so much as cracked open the door. He choked on his breath, but he didn’t so much as tremble when he took it in hand – he had to be even, lest it shatter even more. 

Gold tugged the drawstring easily as he upturned the bag. He could feel Lacey’s eyes on him, but he ignored her in favor of the pieces of Belle’s chipped cup. With a wave of his hand, a delicate movement that belied his pain, a dark blue cloud of smoke engulfed the fragments and wound them back together. The empty corner near the handle, though, remained just as broken as ever. 

Somehow, he was still standing sturdy. 

“That cup again,” Lacey acknowledged. He lifted his head to see her biting the inside of her cheek, not even bothering to hide the way she glared at the remains of her heart. He longed for the real her, the one who’d seen it in his shop and been amazed he’d kept it for so long. “What is it?”

He faltered. How could he possibly explain this to her when she didn’t care?

“It… it’s something from my past,” he answered gently, the only thing he could think of that wouldn’t convey how her cup was the only object he’d treasured in three-hundred years apart from the cloak she’d just sullied. “From our past.”

Her glare deepened, and her lips curled up as if ready to argue with him again, but he refused to let her begin. He couldn’t survive the parasite any longer. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “Let’s not fight.”

She stared at him skeptically, and, for a moment, he had hope that some of Belle had come back. But then the annoyance dripped off her face like water, replaced almost instantly by a girlish grin. His hands finally began to twitch – enough. They’d been lost long enough. 

There was no waiting, no hesitation left in him as he took out the potion the dwarf had given him and drowned her cup with it. His heart ached in realization that, though Belle had touched so many lives, only one of them remembered her. He shook his head and kept pouring, stopping himself at the last moment to drip some into his own glass, too. All suspicion had left her by now, but he didn’t want to risk bringing it back, not when they were so close.

He lifted his glass, she lifted her cup, and they clanked them together before she downed hers in one go. The tremors had started anew in his body now, but he didn’t even notice, too enrapt in the sight of the fairy’s magic swirling around her.

Her eyes went glassy, affected last by the glowing blue sparkles, but she didn’t move. Not at all. His heart – and he was surprised it hadn’t just given out already – beat hard into his bones, and it crossed his mind that, despite his conviction, this might not work at all. He didn’t know which would be harder to bear at this point. 

She set down her cup, slower, more cautiously than Lacey ever had before, and lifted her face to his. She stared at him for the longest moment, her eyes watering. The sob left his lips before he could stop it – it didn’t matter how much this would hurt, or what he’d done, or how he’d ruined everything he’d ever touched. He could see the change. He could see the moment she became herself. And he tried so hard to smile in relief, but it came out broken and sobbing as he rasped her name.

Belle – Belle, finally – reached for him at once, her fingers curling tightly in his hair as if she never wanted to let him go. She heaved his name, too, the sound so much more weeping, and then her mouth was on his, kissing him and licking him and touching him and he couldn’t let her go. Never again. Not even in death. 

He kept his eyes open as she cried on his cheeks, working his hardest to force his tongue past her teeth. He needed her. Oh, how he needed her. But he still pulled away when he’d reached his goal, knowing he’d be lost to her when he still had so much to say. There was hurt beyond belief at the tears – hers and his – that covered her face, but she was back. She was back, and he didn’t care. He was so selfish. 

“I’m so sorry,” he whimpered. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to wake you up to die. But I needed you.”

Belle petted his hair, wiping it off his forehead, and his fingers curled around her sleeves. She was being so gentle with him, but he knew what was coming. He knew that she would yell at him for using her, that she would run into the deteriorating street for everything he did with Lacey while she was gone. It would kill him, but it was almost worth it just to see her whole and back. But then she grabbed his hair tighter, and he knew he’d underestimated her again. She didn’t care – she wouldn’t leave him anymore than he would leave her.

“You lost your son,” she sniffled. 

His eyes filled with tears. His son. The first thing she mentioned was his son. He didn’t know if he should break down at her knees and clutch her like the blessing she was, or sob until he fell apart at her feet. It was too much, and he’d lost so much. 

“I’m sorry,” she said, her lip wibbling as she dropped her head onto his shoulder. “I’m so sorry.”

His hand shook as he brought it to her back, pulling her as close as they could be while standing up.

“I failed,” he cried. “I failed…”

She squeezed him, and, though she was crying, too, she pressed soothing kisses to his neck. 

“No,” she cooed into his hair. “You didn’t fail. You didn’t fail anyone. You did everything you could, Rum, it just… fell through.”

His breath left him in a shudder. Fell through. He yanked her closer till she had to stand on her tiptoes to reach him. She whimpered again and lifted her face back up to his.

“I’ve told you before that it’s not too big.”

He blinked past his tears to look down at her in confusion. “What was that?”

She kissed his hairline, smoothed it back with her shaking fingers, then moved them down his chest. He could feel his own heart racing against her palm. Funny, that it was beating so fast now when it was about to stop completely.

“This,” she whispered. “Your heart. You love us so much. And I know it hurts you, I know that you’d give it all away if you could, but it’s what makes you you. The man I love.” She bit down, obviously desperate not to break down, and continued, “I just wish I’d been there to help you.”

He felt her hot tears hit his skin, and that was too much. He jerked her away from him as if she’d slapped him, and, before either of them could really feel the pain of being separated, melded his lips to hers, swallowing her whole and trying to take more still. 

“Never,” he growled into her mouth, “say you didn’t help me, Belle. You are the only thing that’s kept me human. I failed you, but you never, never failed me.”

She nodded helplessly, even as she devoured his tongue with her teeth. It was obvious that she still disagreed, that she still blamed herself for losing her memories and then gaining new ones that had nothing to do with her. He could no more bear hearing her needless guilt than he could bear thinking about what he’d done with Bae. 

Gold pushed her into the table, slamming all of his broken knickknacks on the floor to give her more space. Her arms wound around him, warm and soft and everything he needed, and he thanked her by licking the roof of her mouth and sucking at her upper lip until her hips snapped against the wood and the words left her mouth in a hollow moan. He drank the noise down and helped her onto her back, climbing on top as he kept kissing her. This had started out as an attempt to comfort her, to make her fell right before they went, but now that he was touching her he couldn’t find it in himself to say “enough”. If there was a Heaven, if there was a Hell, then he knew which one each of them would be going to tonight. Nothing even he could do, especially not now, could keep them together in eternity. His vision blurred, but he hid it by closing his eyes and licking the corner of her mouth. He needed her, now – he’d never be able to have her again otherwise. 

It burned him to leave her lips, but he had to if he was going to do this right. Belle whined when he moved, but he turned it into another beautiful moan by nipping her breasts through her dress, knowing that Lacey wouldn’t have worn a bra with it. For the first time in the weeks he’d been subjected to her, he thanked her for her fashion choices. 

Belle arched her back off the table, filling his mouth with more of her warm, pebbled nipple, and the lace tasted like ash when all he wanted was her bare skin. He scrambled down from her, shucking his suit coat and tie off when his feet hit the floor. She looked for him immediately, and there was so much pain in her face for not feeling him that he gave up on undressing himself the rest of the way and just pulled down his zipper. Belle looked down, and even though she still looked as hurt and desperate as he was sure he himself did, he could see her eyes darken with desire. His cock pulsed, nudging itself just a bit more from his boxers, and he was upon her again. 

Gold lowered his forehead to Belle’s, ensuring that they were as close as possible as he ground his hips into hers. She hissed, low and trembling, but this time it had nothing to do with tears. Still, he adjusted the angle of their faces so he could wipe the tracks off her cheeks with his thumb, and kissed the residue off when that didn’t work.

She smiled at that, a real, honest smile, and he almost broke in two – he hadn’t realized how much he missed that look until he’d had to go without it again.

He looked at her as seriously as he could, and pressed a kiss as gentle as their very first to the dimple of her chin. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” his Belle promised, cradling him close as she jerked her thighs around his waist. “Please, Rumple.”

It never occurred him to tell her no. He reached under her skirt and yanked it, hard, till it rode up her hips, baring her naked pussy to his hand. He shivered, and held her eyes as he spread her wide. She fluttered, her mouth bowed in a breathless groan, but he turned her head with his free hand and locked her gaze on his. 

“Don’t look anywhere else,” he begged. “Just right here. I need… I need you with me.” 

He almost gave up to praise her at her feet when she widened her eyes and opened her lips to touch his. Even hurting, she did everything for him. He took a deep breath of her air and wiggled two fingers into her, deep – he needed her to feel good, since that would be the last thing he’d do.

His hand pressed down on her curls, his fingers pushing up to touch that precious bundle inside her that would make her lose control. She twisted her hips frantically against his, and he knew he’d found it, but one look at her face made him crumble – there was discomfort, and confusion, in her eyes. 

Gold leaned back, sliding his hand out of her to see what he’d done wrong. Though the sight of her wet and wanting was almost enough to distract him, but he forced himself to focus on the black mark above her mound. His eyebrows furrowed – it was ink, a drawing of a woman’s hand flashing her middle finger, surrounded by red, raw flesh. It was obscene, and so unlike her. If they weren’t all going to die anyway, he’d make it his mission to torture Regina and Hook into insanity. 

“Sweetheart, when did you get a tattoo?”

She bent over, and the shoulder of her dress slipped down to reveal her pale, round breasts. He wanted to bury himself between them, but he was afraid now that he’d hurt her again. 

“It doesn’t matter,” she answered softly. “Take it off.”

He blinked at her. “What, love?”

Her hands shook, but she gripped the hem of her dress and pulled it higher, revealing the tattoo all the way. “Take it off me. Please, I don’t want to hurt you anymore.” 

Agony pierced him, but he waved his hand over her mound all the same until the black swirls on her skin disappeared, taking the hurt flesh away with it. He kissed the skin tenderly, ignoring the heady smell of her arousal as he caressed her with his nose. 

“Let me take it all away,” he pleaded. “Let me be inside you, Belle. Please, it can help, I –”

She cut off his babbling by grabbing his hair and thrusting her face into his, kissing him mad and rubbing herself – naked chest and all – over his body. He moaned, and reached down to pull himself out of his shorts. He was thick, and hard, but that was all he had time to notice before he shunted himself inside her. 

They both lifted their faces to the ceiling and cried, not even caring when the ground beneath them gave a horrendous quake. He’d been in Lacey more times than he’d ever wanted, but this was Belle – body, mind, and soul – and it was more than his dying heart could take. 

“Good,” he grunted. He snaked his hand between them to grab her breast, needing her firm tits to ground him. “So good.”

Belle nodded, hitting his nose with the top of her head, but he couldn’t care less. He was in her pretty pussy, and he was moving, and he could swear that the tendrils of his magic that remained could feel her soul moving with him. But selfish bastard that he was, he still needed more.

He hissed, hard and loud, into her ear and brought his hands to the neckline of her dress, buried now between the beautiful flesh that bounced against his silk shirt. He tore the flimsy lace in half in his haste, too desperate to be gentle but too afraid to be rough. Thankfully, Belle took it like she took everything of his, much too understandingly and beautiful in how much she could love him. He didn’t fight her as she rolled him to his back, letting the tattered black material fall to the floor as she rose above him on her knees and sunk back down. He clawed at her hips as he thrust up, filling her until she bucked helpless over his body, her nipples bouncing maddeningly over his lips. Gold opened his lips and sucked one plump bump inside, holding it firm as she rode him into the wood. He didn’t care that he wasn’t going to last, that she wasn’t going to last. He loved her, and, miraculously, she loved him again, too – that’s all he cared about.

“Belle,” he huffed between her breasts, “love you. So close, darling.”

She gyrated, flicking her clit against him. “M-me, too. Hold me. Please. I need your arms.”

For once, he did her one better, wrapping his whole body around her instead of just his arms. She mewled when he used the leverage to roll her back under him, hammering into her like a dog even as he brought their lips together in the chastest touch he could manage. There was heat in his spine, her thighs, their joined hands, and it grew as he rode her slowly into ecstasy. 

“Rum… Rumple,” she hummed, grasping his hair again and rising her arse to meet him halfway. Her eyes crossed, her breath stilled, and then she was clenching so tight around his cock that he was surprised he was still moving. 

He massaged her through her orgasm, letting his own take him by surprise as he rubbed her thighs and knees and that sweet little bud above where they were joined. He kept touching her from muscle memory alone, his vision obstructed and his head exploding from pleasure. It was long, and rough, so much more intense than any time he’d ever cum before, but it made him morbidly relieved to know that he and his Belle would be dying with his seed slipped inside her womb – another potential life saved from having him as a father. 

Belle reached behind him in the aftershocks, pulling something down overtop of them as their sweat cooled in his fading shop. It was too much effort to look up, and he realized he shouldn’t have when he did so anyway – they were wrapped in Bae’s cloak. And Belle’s forehead was mysteriously wet. Only when he moved his own face away from hers to rest in the crook of her shoulder did he realize it was because he was crying on her. 

His eyelids snapped shut, helpless against the tears behind them. He thought he’d cried himself out, but, obviously, he’d been wrong. Her lips touched his eyelids as he sobbed in her arms, and he pushed into her again, burying his softening prick even deeper into her body. He wished she was enough to numb the pain. He wished he was enough to deserve it. 

“Belle –”

“I’m going to have to do laundry later, I know,” she interrupted. Befuddled, he searched her face, but there was no teasing or insanity about her – there was only hope and forgiveness. “Wash Bae’s cloak. I’m sure he’d like it to be clean, when you give it back to him.” 

He wanted to tell her no, to make her take it back, but her fantasy was too wonderful for him to give up. A world where Belle could do laundry while he and Bae talked and finally came together again. A future where they were a family. It was better than he caress of her muscles around his cock, or the love that shone so brightly in her eyes – it was all of those things, and more. Everything.

She nuzzled him close and pillowed him on her chest.

“Whatever happens now, we’re together.”

The smile on his face hurt, even as small as it was, but he gave it to her all the same. It was the least she deserved. She was right – he couldn’t make it without her. 

Gold lifted her hand to his lips, and kissed the knuckle where he’d one day like to place his ring.

“Together…”


End file.
